Bhil - History and Cultural Relations

Although empirical evidence is lacking, the Bhil are credited with the
earliest occupation of their area; with successive Immigrations of
Rajputs and conflicts with periodic waves of Muslim invaders believed to
have driven them farther into the refuge of the forested central Indian
highlands. The Rajputs, in feuds, periods of truce, and even alliances
against the Muslims, were a constant source of interaction. By the end
of the tenth century, most of Rewakantha was under the rule of either
Bhil or Koli (a neighboring tribal group) chieftains. Between the
eleventh and fourteenth centuries, the Bhil were supplanted by chiefs of
Rajput or mixed descent. In recognition of the Bhil's prior
occupation of the land, many Rajput ascensions of the throne in recent
times necessitated validation by the performance of a
tika
or consecration ceremony, by representatives of the Bhil chiefs of the
area. Around 1480, Rewakantha came under Muslim administration, leading
to conversion to Islam among many Bhils. However, these Tadvi Bhils, as
they came to be known, maintain many of the traditions as well as the
religious beliefs of the past. A Political system of rulership is
ascribed to the Bhils from the earliest times. From the sixteenth
century, which coincides with the Rajput supplantation, the Bhil
political leadership fragmented into several chieftainships, leading to
speculation that the Hindu encroachment, driving the Bhil into the
hinterland, was a dynamic force that led to sociopolitical change.
During the eighteenth century, deprived of their lands and finding their
subsistence base greatly reduced, the Bhils resorted to looting and
pillaging in large, armed bands. This led to conflict with the Maratha
invaders and local rulers who retaliated by attempting to eradicate
them. The Bhils were killed by the hundreds, and the survivors took
refuge even deeper in the hills; this move resulted in greater
disintegration of their leadership but increasing self-reliance and
Individualism. These developments are reflected in today's
egalitarian structure of social relations, quite different from the
system of rulership that is believed to have existed prior to the
successive waves of immigration into Rewakantha. It took the
intervention of the British imperial administration to restore peace and
order in the Rewakantha territory, enticing the Bhils back through the
extension of an amnesty and persuading them to settle down as
cultivators. An agreement hammered out by a Mr. Willoughby, a British
political agent and Kumar Vasava of Sagbara, a powerful Bhil chief,
ensured a semiautonomous status for the Bhil under Rajput territorial
administration and provided them with land for cultivation, loans with
which to purchase seed and bullocks, as well as rights to resources of
the forest. Similar pacts were worked out in Khandesh. At present, the
Bhils are a settled agricultural people whose short history of
brigandage undeservedly besmirches their image on occasion. Those who
have lost their lands now work as laborers. Extensive deforestation that
has now reduced the forest to portions of the eastern highlands has
considerably diminished Bhil dependence on forest resources.